Fickering
by Little Miss Jigsaw
Summary: Lights flicker, familiar surroundings fade in and out of focus. She's going in circles, and that simply will not do. Strange little oneshot. R


Okay, I really have no earthly idea what in the hell this is... It's another of my "don't tell who the characters are" pieces... For this, hell I don't know who they are myself... I've a few ideas, but I'll not say them. (Though clues that fit both of my ideas leaked in near the end)

Again I say I have no idea what this is... Blame the plot bunny that decided to cough up hairballs in my brain at 2 am this morning. those hairballs were gathered, and turned into this, the moment I had time.

For the record: I don't own RE... if I did, Billy, Leon, Wesker, and Carlos would currently be at my feet, calling me mistress... and Ashley and Sherry would be dead... That is all.(oh, and there would be a remake of 2...)

_**Flickering**_

Lights flicker.

Familiar surroundings fade in and out of focus.

The sickly-sweet smell of decay hangs in the air, mixed with the scent of blood, and sweat.

Bloody hand-prints further ruin the already stained and ugly wallpaper. Little crimson droplets cascading down the ugly yellow surface, dripping from the torn and broken body of the woman whose hands leave the smears.

She stumbles, and hits the wall, barely biting back the scream that threatens to tear from her throat. To her left in garish orange spray-paint letters is the message _the end is very fucking nigh_. She wants to laugh. She starts to, but it turns into a cough, that sprays more blood onto the wall; tiny ruby beads pouring from her lips to remind her of her ever-shortening life-span. The end is coming pretty soon. But that's what makes the message so amusing... Maybe that's just the blood-loss talking.

Lights flicker.

She doesn't notice much any more.

Familiar surroundings fade in and out of focus.

Even if all she sees is an ugly yellow blur, she knows she's been here before. She's going in circles, and that simply will not do.

The end is very fucking nigh.

Damn straight it is. She knows it... _They_ knew it, when they promised her that they would return with something to stop the bleeding, perhaps something to dull the pain. She hadn't bothered to wait for them. They aren't coming back. They're either dead, or think she is...

She shoves herself away from the wall, and manages to throw herself towards the glass door. The glass is cold beneath her hands; the smooth surface that has somehow remained clean throughout the night now soiled with blood, as she relishes in the cool temperature. She should be cold, she knows, with a good portion of her blood clearly showing what path she's taken, but instead, she's boiling hot... It unnerves her, but she pushes the thought to the back of her mind with less trouble than it takes to push the door open. She practically falls out into the street.

The few surviving street lamps flicker, like the flames that now eat away at half the city.

She ignores the flickering. It reminds her too much of her own quickly-coming-to-an-end life...

Moans of the walking corpses that haven't yet noticed her presence make her shiver.

She ignores those, too. They bring to mind her fevered state... She's not even going to consider that possibility. She can't bear to...Not when she has no means of stopping it... They took all her guns, when they promised to come back.

The street signs fade in and out of focus, as she struggles to read them.

She's determined not to die until she's at least made an effort to find _him_. He wouldn't have left her, like they had, if he'd been there. He wouldn't have taken what weapons she had left, and left her to bleed to death. But he'd vanished, hours before. She's going to find him, though. She refuses to die until she has. At least then, there will be someone to stop her when she-... No. She won't think about that possibility...

The sickly-sweet smell of decay gets stronger, accompanied by the stench of burning flesh, and metallic hints of blood. Her blood. There is a puddle now formed at her feet. She's been standing still too long. She forces herself to move forward, wondering why she's still alive. She knows she should have been dead long ago; dead and ice-cold in that damned alleyway, where she'd been left... Yet she's still forcing herself onward, and still boiling hot. The idea that she's already dead briefly crosses her mind, before she discards it as she coughs up what feels like another gallon of her own blood. She hurt too much to be dead, and this place wasn't enough to be considered hell... Not by her. She's seen worse, many times...

No lights flickering here.

Somehow, this disturbs her... As if the lights- flickering, but somehow still alive- were measuring how long she had left.

Her surroundings- no longer familiar- fade in and out of focus.

Is that a person ahead, or one of the corpses? She can't tell. Her vision, blurred either by her swiftly approaching death, or from the blood that runs into her eyes, won't allow her to make out even the slightest details anymore. She could be walking towards the grim reaper for all she knew. _The end is very fucking nigh._... No matter what she was walking towards, that message still rang true.

The smell of blood and sweat over-powers the now-faded scent of decay... Perhaps it is a person she's walking towards... She prays to a God she's never believed in that it's him, and not one of _them_... Even if she can't really blame them. Times are hard. It's kill or be killed, and every man for himself. Take what you can, and run; leave the dying to die, or get slowed down by them later...

The empty gun holster on her leg is a bitter reminder of what those 'rules' have gotten her into... No way out... No way to stop it from happening...

The shape moving towards her lets out a sort of strangled cry... A cry that forms her name.

As she tries to answer, she can feel her fragile grip on life slipping. No, not now... Not when she's just found him... She doesn't get his name out. All that comes from her mouth is a small sob, and a shower of crimson drops. She doesn't realize she's been standing still for a while now, until she tries to step forward, and slips on the puddle of blood that has again formed at her feet.

He catches her. He's always caught her. But this time it's a little too late.

Lights flicker.

Not lights, she realizes, but her... Her life, flickering, like a lone candle trying to stay lit in a hurricane.

Everything keeps fading in and out of focus.

She tries in vain to speak... to warn him of what's happening to her... to tell him what he has to do. She still can't get the words out.

A bloody hand-print now adorns the side of his face, from where she touches his cheek, her blood mixing with his, from the cut on his face. Her mind is too clouded to register just what that means.

The end is very, very fucking nigh.

It's probably best she can't speak. She's always hated long goodbyes. She's never given him one before, always walking away before she could get caught up... His hand brushes through her blood- and sweat-soaked short hair. Though she can't see them, she can certainly feel his normally cold and calculating blue eyes willing her to stay conscious. Not happening...

The virus...

It's a pity that she won't be able to tell him what's about to happen... That she's about to turn on him... That he needs to kill her now, before she slips any farther into the Reaper's hold.

Wait...

The virus...

Her blood...

The cut...

Too late now. She can feel death taunting her as she finally stops her flickering; the hurricane finally snuffing out that lone little candle. The end was no longer very fucking nigh. This was the end, and she'd missed her chance to make sure it was only _her_ end.

Lights no longer flicker...

Nothing fades in and out of focus...

She is no longer there...

Her body still moves...

He foolishly thinks for a moment that she's still with him...

Only for a moment...

But a moment is all it takes. It's all it took to seal her fate... A moment is all it will take to do the same to him...

END

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Review, if only to tell me that this made no sense, and was WAY weird...

Oh, and lemme just say this about the identities of "Her" "Him" and "Them"... "She" is not Claire, "He" is not Chris (why? cuz I don't like the Redfields)... "They" could be anyone. The STARS, a random group of survivors... the world may never know.


End file.
